Taking deep measured breaths, I clambered out of bed, dragging my blankets with me. Slamming the window shut, I flipped the latch. With trembling fingers, I turned up the lamp, but while the light drove away the shadows, the panic scorching through my veins only worsened. Because it hadn’t been a nightmare. Everything that had happened was real, and with every blink of my eyelids, I saw the whip crack through the air, the blood splatter against the curse, the look in Tristan’s eyes as he turned away from me. And echoing in my head, ceaseless and unending, were his screams.
“Tristan.” His name came out as a gasp, and I dropped to my knees. My hands twisted like claws, nails clutching and snagging the fabric of my bedding, a scream threatening to rise in my throat. I clapped my hands over my ears and buried my face in my knees, trying to drown out the sound and failing because it came from inside my own head. The voice of reason shouted warning after warning at me, and I clenched my teeth and held my breath until my chest burned. What was done was done, and I would not improve either of our circumstances by panicking.
“Get up,” I snapped as though my body was some sort of separate entity that I could order about. “Move.” My knees cracked loudly as I straightened, my numb feet hardly feeling the floor beneath me as I paced shakily up and down the room. My mind raced, coming up with increasingly elaborate waking nightmares of what was happening to him now. Should I go? Should I take Fleur, gallop through the night, and try to sneak into Trollus? But even if I didn’t get caught, what help would I be?
“Stop it,” I said. “Quit thinking.” As if such a thing were possible.
Stumbling over to my desk, I snatched up a page of lyrics. Eyes jumping from line to line, I softly sang, my voice breathless and terrible. “Again!” I said, trying to mimic my mother’s voice. “That was dreadful.”
Starting again, I sang louder, pushing everything into my voice. It was raw and wild, but like a hammer to a blade, I used it to temper my emotion into something useful, something I could control.
The door swung open, and I broke off mid-note, my hands grasping for the bedposts to keep my balance. But before I could regain an ounce of composure, my mother strode in.
“Cécile!” she snarled, but I cut her off before she could start into me.
“Mama!” I flung myself against her, burying my face in the fur collar of her coat. She smelled like perfume, cigar smoke, and spilled wine, but I didn’t care.
“What’s happened?” she demanded. “Has someone hurt you?” Her strong arms pushed me back, face pale as she examined me. “Well?”
What to say? The truth was impossible – even if I could tell her, after the way I’d just acted, I’d sound like a raving lunatic. “I woke up afraid,” I mumbled, looking away for shame of how childish I sounded.
“A bad dream?” From the tone of her voice, my mother agreed with my assessment of my behavior.
Wiping tears away with the back of my hand, I nodded.
“Stars and heavens, you will be the death of me!” She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, and only then did I notice how disheveled she was. Her hair was loose of all its pins and the kohl rimming her eyes was smeared. “For a dream you wake the neighbors. Ahh!” she grimaced. “Not just the neighbors, half the dogs in the city were caterwauling along with you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re a fool of a girl.” She shook her head, her eyes blurry with something – likely wine, though it could have been absinthe. Or worse. Her hand reached for me so suddenly that I had to stop myself from jerking away. “You’ve been crying.”
Warmth filled my chest, my heart convinced I’d heard a note of compassion in her voice.
“You shouldn’t, you know. Some girls look pretty when they cry and can wield their tears like a weapon against men. But you aren’t one of them. Instead of wrapping them around your finger, you’ll send them running.”
The warmth fled, and my mutinous bottom lip began to tremble.
Her shoulders slumped a little. “Heaven knows, that’s why I never shed a tear in public.” Letting go of my face, she took my arm and pulled me toward the door. “It’s freezing in here. If you catch cold, you won’t be able to sing. And if you can’t sing…” Her mouth pressed out in a little pout. “Well, the neighbors might well be pleased.”
I steadied her arm as we walked down the stairs together. “Build up the fire a bit,” she said. “I will make us something hot to drink.”
I mindlessly stirred the coals and added wood to the fire, my mind all for Tristan and what could possibly be going on in Trollus. Where was he now? What were they doing to him? And worst of all, what was I going to do about it? The promise I’d made his father felt like it was crawling through my veins, a separate living thing that had found its way inside me against my will.
“Sit with me.”